30 réponses à ce sujet

[Goosh]

Hello all. I just had a quick (and likely silly) question regarding the Hawke's Key. On my Mage character, I got the fire damage, ignore armour, and critical chance upgrades for the staff. In hindsight, these seem like less than stellar choices, particularly the armour penetration, as I'm not even sure that mage spells are affected by armour. So, was this a poor combination of choices? Should I reload an earlier save and try again? Thanks in advance!

[SuicidalBaby]

Spells, other than physical damage, are only affected by the target's Magic Resistances as well as the target's elemental damage Immunity. Physical damage spells will still be affected by armor level unless otherwise stated in the spells description.

[thendcomes]

Overall, even if you pick the best upgrades, it's not all that big of a deal for the staff. But here's what you should pick if you really want to optimize:

*Edited out the wrong information*

The first upgrade is negligible.

For the second upgrade, the attacks ignore enemy armor is by far the best modifier you can have on a physical damage weapon. For a weapon that is not physical damage, it literally does nothing. I'd go for the minor attack speed boost. The other mods have a low proc rate and aren't very useful in my opinion.

For the third upgrade, the critical damage boost can be worth more DPS than the critical chance boost depending on your current levels of crit chance. You may find the chance to slow the enemy useful, assuming that modifier is not bugged (it used to INCREASE speed, it may still be bugged). The stun upgrade has a low proc rate so I don't care for it.

Modifié par thendcomes, 31 juillet 2011 - 07:19 .

[Darchon_]

thendcomes wrote...

For the third upgrade, the critical damage boost is worth more DPS than the critical chance boost. You may find the chance to slow the enemy useful, assuming that modifier is not bugged (it used to INCREASE speed, it may still be bugged). The stun upgrade has a low proc rate so I don't care for it.

Not entirely accurate. For example, if you have 0% crit chance, then the Crit damage boost is useless.

Unfortunately the solution to whether more crit damage or more crit chance is better for you is dependent on the existing values of your chance and damage. If you already have a high crit rate, then crit damage is the clear winner, but if you only have an 10% crit rate (assuming valiant aura) and 50% crit damage then (using dps = base dps + crit chance * crit damage* base dps) you gain half your crit chance bonus in dps, but only one tenth your crit damage bonus in dps. So you would need a +25% crit damage bonus to equal a 5% crit chance bonus.

That might be pretty confusing, but it's late, and I don't have any way of making it clearer unless I pull out a huge spreadsheet. I'll try and clear it up tomorrow if I remember

[mesmerizedish]

Darchon_ wrote...

Not entirely accurate. For example, if you have 0% crit chance, then the Crit damage boost is useless.

Crit chance has a floor of 5%. No matter what, you always crit on a natural 20

[Sabotin]

But undead are immune to criticals!

Ahem, you might be thinking of a different system, crit rate can be 0 in DA2. 

Anyway, in crit rate vs damage just calculate which one's better for you, it's not that hard to multiply one with the other...
And yes, ignore armor is useless on a staff, unless it does physical damage I think.

[mesmerizedish]

No, it can't. The natural 20 bit was a joke. But crit chance has a minimum of 5%.

[Bapawaka]

thendcomes wrote...



The first upgrade is best used on Cold, no question. The damage is negligible, but Cold has a secondary effect of slowing enemies. Electricity also has a secondary effect of stunning, but the staff is already electric. Fire has no secondary effect. Nature's effect is amplifying the force of the damage, but the damage is so small that there's effectively nothing useful about it.

IIRC, + [elemental] on a weapon doesn't include the effect. So in this case, your advise of choosing +cold dmg upgrade, for the slowing effect, is redundant.

[Sabotin]

ishmaeltheforsaken wrote...

No, it can't. The natural 20 bit was a joke. But crit chance has a minimum of 5%.

Is that a practically proven thing or how do you figure (I didn't actually do any tests)? Because the character sheet disagreees:
img200.imageshack.us/img200/944/screenshot2011073016400.jpg

[SuicidalBaby]

which makes random critcals with 0% critical chance unexplainable.

ish is a mod god. do not anger the gods. ish is correct.

[thendcomes]

Bapawaka wrote...
IIRC, + [elemental] on a weapon doesn't include the effect. So in this case, your advise of choosing +cold dmg upgrade, for the slowing effect, is redundant.

Elemental weapons adds the effect. I thought the +element from runes or whatever source, does as well.

[thendcomes]

Darchon_ wrote...
Not entirely accurate. For example, if you have 0% crit chance, then the Crit damage boost is useless.

Unfortunately the solution to whether more crit damage or more crit chance is better for you is dependent on the existing values of your chance and damage. If you already have a high crit rate, then crit damage is the clear winner, but if you only have an 10% crit rate (assuming valiant aura) and 50% crit damage then (using dps = base dps + crit chance * crit damage* base dps) you gain half your crit chance bonus in dps, but only one tenth your crit damage bonus in dps. So you would need a +25% crit damage bonus to equal a 5% crit chance bonus.

That might be pretty confusing, but it's late, and I don't have any way of making it clearer unless I pull out a huge spreadsheet. I'll try and clear it up tomorrow if I remember

I thought that 1 point of crit chance = 1 point of crit damage, except at 0 and 100 crit chance. I guess pull out the spreadsheet when you can.

[Bapawaka]

thendcomes wrote...

Bapawaka wrote...
IIRC, + [elemental] on a weapon doesn't include the effect. So in this case, your advise of choosing +cold dmg upgrade, for the slowing effect, is redundant.

Elemental weapons adds the effect. I thought the +element from runes or whatever source, does as well.

Peter Thomas wrote...

Fire doesn't have a special effect, but fire based abilities tend to do more damage than others.

Extra damage from weapon enchantments count as minor hits, so they don't do things like secondary effects or redirection.

Electrical
damage doesn't drain stamina in DA2, but it does have a chance to stun
the target (actual stun, not just a force reaction, so it clears threat
as well).

The answer is bolded.

Modifié par Bapawaka, 30 juillet 2011 - 06:44 .

[Darchon_]

thendcomes wrote...

I thought that 1 point of crit chance = 1 point of crit damage, except at 0 and 100 crit chance. I guess pull out the spreadsheet when you can.

The reason that these are not equal is because of the way multiplication and addition work together. The formula for calculating average dps with crits is

DPS = Base DPS + (Base DPS * Critical Chance * Critical Damage)

For most instances the Critical Damage percentage will be greater than the Critical Chance percentage. This is inherent in the game, since ones starts at 50%. This means that incremental additions to the Critical Chance percentage will be of a higher fraction of the critical chance than incremental additions of Critical Damage are to the critical damage. This gives the additions to the Critical Chance more effect in the overall outcome of the calculation.

You can see this for yourself by multiplying some simple numbers:

(4+1) multiplied by 8 = 40
4 multiplied by (8+1) = 36

You can modify the incremental addition to the larger number to make things equal:

(4+1) multiplied by 8 = 40
4 multiplied by (8+2) = 40

Because 4 divided by 1 is equal to 8 divided by 2

I hope that makes it clear. Let me know if you still want that spreadsheet for determining whether X% crit chance is better than Y% crit damage.

[thendcomes]

Thanks guys for showing me. I'm gonna stop talking out of my ass now. Sorry all.

[Killjoy Cutter]

Too bad there are better weapons in the game already...

[WillieStyle]

As to the question of crit chance versus crit damage, the answer is to increase whichever is lower unless you have 100% crit chance.

[WillieStyle]

For warriors and mages there might be better weapons since there are a large selection of elemental staves and 2-Handed weapons. But for rogues, the level 20+ Hawke's Key is likely the best physical dagger in the game as long as you choose the "ignores enemy armor" option.

Since, to the best of my knowledge, there aren't any high end fire, cold, or electricity daggers, against enemies like the Act 3 Dragon, Hawke's key is likely best in slot.

[thendcomes]

For mages, the question of "best staff" comes down to 2 things - best for auto attacks and best for spell casting.

For spell casting, the Hawke's Key is overall the best in the game @ level 28. The only staff that significantly outperforms it on any one element is The Final Thought (w/ Rune of Devastation) on Spirit damage (only useful on Spirit Bolt and Horror). It compares to the Torch (w/ Devastation) on Fire spells only, Cold-Blooded on Cold spells only, and outperforms Eye of the Storm (w/ Devastation) on all spells including Electric. Of course, the utility of the staff is called into question since you must obtain it so late.

For auto attacks, the bonus you get from exploiting enemy weakness will always be better, and staves with rune slots can equip the Primeval Lyrium Rune for an even wider supremacy. THK is surpassed by Eye of the Storm with Primeval Lyrium Rune (whether that's a good place for it is up to you), but beats it without one. The Torch will always be the best against fire weak enemies, TFT will always be the best against nature weak enemies, Malcolm's Honor will be best against spirit weak enemies, and CB will always be the best against cold weak enemies.

Modifié par thendcomes, 04 août 2011 - 02:12 .

[Myusha]

 No Rune Slots

[thendcomes]

ishmaeltheforsaken wrote...

No, it can't. The natural 20 bit was a joke. But crit chance has a minimum of 5%.

Does this mean that 95% crit chance on the character sheet is 100% crit chance in reality?

[ripstrawberry]

^
I think it works the same as def and atk. If you have less than 5% the game rounds up your chances to 5%. I f you add something to that value like arcane shield (and you really only have 0% def without it), you won't get 25% def. You'll only get 20% def. So with crit, 95% is really 95% but 0%-4%=5%

[thendcomes]

Thanks for the reply sir.

[ripstrawberry]

no prob.

[Basher of Glory]

According to the advices here I took the 3% attack increase. Still, I have a problem with these numbers.

3% of what?
Auto attack? How fast is it without the increase?
Spells cooldowns 3% faster? So (as example) not 30 sec, but 29,1 sec? OMG, I'd be uber!

I see it as an advantage, when e.g. a rogue gets this bonus, because they hit so fast and crit so often, that even a small chance adds noticeably to dps. So the seemingly small "3%" would be a good advantage in the long run.

But for mages?

I admit, since I play this game, I've learnt a lot about initially as "ridiculous" denoted bonusses, which were later acknowledged as very useful.
Perhaps someone here can convince me, that even for mages 3% faster attacks are worthwhile.
Thx in advance!